Anna Karenina eBook

As they drew near this more important marsh, the chief
aim of their expedition, Levin could not help considering
how he could get rid of Vassenka and be free in his
movements. Stepan Arkadyevitch evidently had
the same desire, and on his face Levin saw the look
of anxiety always present in a true sportsman when
beginning shooting, together with a certain good-humored
slyness peculiar to him.

“How shall we go? It’s a splendid
marsh, I see, and there are hawks,” said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, pointing to two great birds hovering
over the reeds. “Where there are hawks,
there is sure to be game.”

“Now, gentlemen,” said Levin, pulling
up his boots and examining the lock of his gun with
rather a gloomy expression, “do you see those
reeds?” He pointed to an oasis of blackish green
in the huge half-mown wet meadow that stretched along
the right bank of the river. “The marsh
begins here, straight in front of us, do you see—­where
it is greener? From here it runs to the right
where the horses are; there are breeding places there,
and grouse, and all round those reeds as far as that
alder, and right up to the mill. Over there,
do you see, where the pools are? That’s
the best place. There I once shot seventeen snipe.
We’ll separate with the dogs and go in different
directions, and then meet over there at the mill.”

“Well, which shall go to left and which to right?”
asked Stepan Arkadyevitch. “It’s
wider to the right; you two go that way and I’ll
take the left,” he said with apparent carelessness.

As soon as they entered the marsh, the two dogs began
hunting about together and made towards the green,
slime-covered pool. Levin knew Laska’s
method, wary and indefinite; he knew the place too
and expected a whole covey of snipe.

“Veslovsky, beside me, walk beside me!”
he said in a faint voice to his companion splashing
in the water behind him. Levin could not help
feeling an interest in the direction his gun was pointed,
after that casual shot near the Kolpensky marsh.

“Oh, I won’t get in your way, don’t
trouble about me.”

But Levin could not help troubling, and recalled Kitty’s
words at parting: “Mind you don’t
shoot one another.” The dogs came nearer
and nearer, passed each other, each pursuing its own
scent. The expectation of snipe was so intense
that to Levin the squelching sound of his own heel,
as he drew it up out of the mire, seemed to be the
call of a snipe, and he clutched and pressed the lock
of his gun.

“Bang! bang!” sounded almost in his ear.
Vassenka had fired at a flock of ducks which was
hovering over the marsh and flying at that moment
towards the sportsmen, far out of range. Before
Levin had time to look round, there was the whir of
one snipe, another, a third, and some eight more rose
one after another.